Sky Blog
In corporate law, the U.S. academic elite stubbornly clings to shareholder primacy as the foundational principle of the field. The concept is simple, even elegant: Shareholders should be given ultimate control of the corporation because they are entitled to the …
Responding to a request by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the EU’s data protection supervisory bodies released an initial joint opinion on the impact of the U.S. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data …
Accounting fraud imposes severe costs on firms and their stakeholders. Firms at which fraud occurs often have inefficient resource allocation and face higher cost of capital and regulatory penalties. While shareholders suffer the brunt of these damages, frauds can also …
The frequency at which public companies must report financial information to investors has been the subject of intense debate in the European Union, Asia, and more recently the United States. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is examining …
Since it was enacted in July 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act’s Volcker Rule has challenged banks and their regulators alike. This is particularly the case with respect to its restrictions on proprietary trading. It has been one thing for former Federal …
Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, scholars, regulators, and policymakers have engaged in extensive studies to try to control excessive risk-taking by systemically important financial firms. In a recent article, available here, I argue that those studies do not fully …
I am grateful
U.S. manufacturing employment fell by more than 40 percent over the last two decades, from 18 percent of the total U.S. workforce in 1997 to just 10 percent by 2018. Prior work identifies increased import competition from foreign competitors as …
After the recent proxy and shareholder proposal season, the Division considered whether additional guidance or changes to its process of administering Exchange Act Rule 14a-8 were warranted. As a result of that consideration, the staff focused on how it could
The choice-of-law clause is now omnipresent. A recent study found that these clauses can be found in 75 percent of material agreements executed by large public companies in the United States. The popularity of such clauses in contemporary practice raises …
The 2019 proxy season was marked by an increased willingness among shareholders to hold boards accountable on director elections, say- on-pay, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) shareholder proposals. For example, almost 5 percent of directors received less than 80 …
Corporate governance is characterized by agency constructs. The agency relationship in modern finance and corporate governance is characterized by attempts to optimize incentives between principals and agents, control costs, minimize information asymmetries, control adverse selection and moral hazard, optimize risk …
Good morning. I understand the Committee will be continuing the discussion about our proxy system in today’s [September 5] telephonic meeting.
Last month the Commission issued guidance regarding how an investment adviser’s fiduciary duty and Rule 206(4)-6 under the Advisers
Stock-based compensation (SBC) is a significant and growing expense for many firms. From fiscal year 2006 to 2018, average SBC has increased steadily from 2.6 percent to 3.8 percent of operating expenses for publicly-traded companies. Despite its importance, however, most …
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recently introduced Economic Value Added (EVA) as its latest approach to measuring company performance. Recent white papers from ISS, authored by Bennett Stewart (ISS Senior Advisor), who, along with former business partner Joel Stern, developed the …
Private equity (PE) firms influence their buyout targets in many ways. The literature documents that PE improves target firms’ operational practices, productivity, and innovation while cutting existing jobs and creating new ones. It is far less clear whether and how …
Antitrust treatment of no-poach agreements continues to evolve as private cases progress, state attorneys general ramp up enforcement efforts and federal regulators further contemplate the legality of no-poach agreements.
Over the past two years, private plaintiffs have filed class action …
What should be the purpose of the public corporation? Over the last few years, that has become an increasingly open and contested question, as evidenced by the recent statements of the corporate sector itself, the practice of B corporations like …
There has recently been much debate and some confusion about a bedrock principle of corporate law – namely, the essence of the board’s fiduciary duty, and particularly the extent to which the board can or should or must consider the …